The present invention generally relates to shoes, in particular, to athletic shoes that include an adjustable sizing system.
Numerous consumers purchase shoes and other footwear for use in athletic activities such as running, cross training, soccer, football, baseball, tennis, walking, and the like. In recent years, sports directed to children have been very popular. In order for these children to compete effectively and to reduce immediate and future podiatric problems, it is essential that they wear shoes that are sized properly.
As children develop, consumers purchase numerous pairs of athletic shoes of increasing sizes to maintain the pace of the child""s growth. In general, the feet of children grow quickly during the younger years and decelerate as the children reach maturity. Many parents have purchased shoes for their children only to see that the child has grown out of the shoes before the shoes have been barely worn. This problem is magnified for certain shoes made for specific seasonal sports where the wearable season is short. To avoid the cost of replacing shoes on a frequent basis, some parents might purchase shoes in larger sizes in an effort to preempt the growth of the feet. Alternatively or additionally, some parents may have their children wear the shoes even when the child has slightly outgrown them. Neither of these practices are desired because the shoes will not likely fit properly for the wearer. Improper or poorly fitting footwear may effect the athletic performance of the child or could aggravate medical problems associated with the foot.
In general, most children""s feet grow approximately one full shoe size in a year, or one-half shoe size about every four months to six months. Consequently, the shoes need to be purchased frequently to accommodate the feet of the child. The feet of children may grow about one-third inch or more in length within a year. For families on limited budgets, the additional costs may create problems or cause the parents to forego the athletic activity. Some parents may forego purchasing new shoes and keep the poor-fitting shoes on the children. Unfortunately, this unintended problem may lead to effecting the proper growth and development of the feet of the children or could for cause future medical problems. Thus, it is advantageous to extend the life of footwear to reduce the number of frequent purchases. Also it is advantageous to provide footwear that fits properly for the wearer for as long as possible.
The American standard sizing system has various size designations such as 6, 6xc2xd, and 7. Other standard world wide footwear sizing systems such as the English, European, and metric use similar type sizing arrangements. Under the American standard designation system, 6 and 6xc2xd, and 6xc2xd and 7 are considered to be adjacent sizes in the sizing system. These adjacent sizes are also considered to have half-size length differentials while 6 and 7 would be considered as having a full size length differential. The size ranges and designation vary between women, men, girl, boy, and infant footwear. In general, footwear manufacturers provide the shoes in most sizes for each half size length differentials to accommodate the consumer""s demand for shoes that properly conform to the feet of the wearer. This is a special consideration when supplying shoes to children. Manufacturing shoes for each half size can be expensive causing manufacturers to incur additional tooling and setup costs. The additional cost increases through the entire production, distribution, and retail supply channels. In addition, the intermediate sized shoes may increase inventory and carrying costs of the distributor and thus, may also increase the cost to the ultimate consumer who uses the shoes. Thus, it would be advantageous to reduce the number of differing sized shoes in a product line to reduce the cost of shoes, for the consumer and the manufacturer, if it could be accomplished without sacrificing the consumer""s demand for properly fitting shoes.
In view of the foregoing, the present invention is directed to an article of footwear that includes a system to allow the shoe size to be adjustable by the wearer. The present invention is an article of footwear in the form of a shoe that includes a sole, an upper extending from the sole. The upper has a front and rear portions, and a foot opening at the rear portion. The foot opening is positioned to receive a foot when the shoe is worn. There is also a sizing member selectively positionable between a first position within the foot opening and a second position outside of the foot opening. In one aspect of the present invention, the sizing member has a preformed separation line to allow the sizing member to be detachable from the upper.
The sizing member provides the ability to extend the useful life of an athletic shoe for a particular wearer an athletic shoe beyond a conventional intermediate sized shoe. According to one aspect of the present invention, the sizing member includes an inner core, a preformed separation line, a fastening system, and a locking feature. The inner core is substantially enclosed between a front cover and a rear cover and the separation line embodies a plurality of perforations at the top of the sizing member. The fastening system preferably includes mating features, such as hooks and loops, to secure the sizing member to the upper by a mechanical connection. The locking feature includes a flap that secures the sizing member between a sockliner and the sole when the shoe is worn. The present invention further includes a sockliner of multilayer construction in which the layers are individually separable with respect to each other. The sockliner includes a base and a plurality of removable layers to adjust the size of the athletic shoe in conjunction with the sizing member.
Another aspect of the present invention is a method of adjusting the effective length of the article of footwear. The sizing member receives the foot of the wearer to provide an appropriate fit until the foot outgrows the footwear. The article of footwear includes a sole, an upper extending from the sole and an foot opening for receiving the foot of a wearer in which a sizing member is positioned within the foot opening and attached to the upper. The method has the following the steps where the user wears the footwear having a first effective length in which the sizing member contacts of a rear panel of the upper. Next, the user creates a second effective length by removing the sizing member from the foot opening. Finally, the user wears the footwear having the second effective length. The second effective length is greater than the first effective length.
Another object of the present invention is to reduce the life cycle cost to consumers for purchasing shoes.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description thereof, presented in connection with the following drawings in which like reference numerals identifying the elements throughout.